


I Will Return

by blak_cat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:04:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4674530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blak_cat/pseuds/blak_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla desperately searches for the piece of her that might bring her back if everything she knows about herself changes with a few drops of the Old One's blood...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Return

_I will return, don't you ever hang your head, I will return in every song and each sunset, our memory was always within reach, I will return, I will return…_

\--

Laura dragged her upstairs. Though Carmilla's feet itched to run out after Mattie, she knew Laura wouldn't allow it. It seemed the most direct course of action to stop her from reaching the crater, but challenging her...well at least it would buy everyone else some time to think of a plan while Carmilla got disemboweled. For some reason Laura wouldn't allow that either.

So it was upstairs she was pulled, the wooden floorboards groaning and pounded beneath their loud footsteps, Laura practically running, nearly tripping only once and stealthily caught by Carmilla so quickly she probably didn't even register it happened as she banged and banged on Laf and Perry's door to the sounds of groans on the other side and the flicker off light coming on through the cracks in the doorframe.

"Tell them what's going on, I'm going to text Danny," Laura said, turning and running back downstairs.

"As you wish," Carmilla muttered.

Of course. The shining white knight.

The door opened and Perry's confusion turned into a glare when she spotted Carmilla at the threshold of the door.

"For the record, I wasn't the one banging on the door."

"What do you want?"

"Crisis, disaster, Armageddon, the usual."

"Where's Laura?"

"Gathering the cavalry downstairs."

Perry pushed passed her and headed for the stairs. LaFontaine gave her an equally chilly glare, following her to the sounds of rhythmic thumps until they reached the first floor and Laura's frantic voice could be heard.

Carmilla sighed and caught sight of the slightly ajar door to the bedroom that had once been hers. The narrow expanse of an opening revealed nothing but black. Laura had taken to sleeping downstairs the past few days, though she'd finally gotten off sleeping over the floorboards, she kept to the couch.

In some ways, that felt more intimate than holding her in the night. Hearing her heart beating so close but barred away, knowing without a doubt, for once, it was beating for her and trying to reach her. Sharing in misery had never made her feel more joined at the heart with Laura. Happiness was too easy. But the pain they seemed to put themselves through just to stay close to each other? It must be worth something.

_The matchstick's chance that girl might love you…_

Laura would slip away though. When this was all over and circumstance no longer forced them on each other she would run back home to follow that trail of thoughts and logic and possibly find her love that clicks in a lock that smelled like Danny Lawrence. Perhaps it was for the best.

_Instead of what falls away..._

The bed they shared fell away, the night under the stars fell away, the kisses in the hayloft, the waltzing…It was all gone now. Mattie was right about that much. So what else went with them she wondered? Smiles and laughs and dreams? Soon Mircalla would be in the dark again, more alone than ever before.

"Carm?" came a shout from downstairs. "Kind of a group effort."

Since when was she part of the group? Even when they were together, fingers laced, and glued at the hip, she was not one of them. And how easily they cast her out when that doomed relationship went south.

"Carm!"

This time it was more forceful. Carmilla sighed and walked downstairs, finding them gathered around the computer desk, J.P. pulled from his own slumber from the trapdoor blinking rapidly and sucking down a blood pack. Though a chair stood open and inviting next to Laura, she stepped off to the side, sitting on the chaise, head bowed.

She was a sojourner now.

\----

"Were you really considering it?" Laura said when their forces met up out past the patrols under the cover of some trees south of the pit.

Jeep and LaFontaine were doing their best to ascertain the biological ramifications of the ingestion of the blood to measure out risks but all Carmilla could hear was "berserk", "rampage", "devastating", and on the fucking list went.

"It doesn't matter," Carmilla said, staring at the pit and waiting for Mattie to show.

Laura shuffled next to her. Last time they were alone together in the dark it ended in tears and a piece of Carmilla's chest felt like it had been broken back open and some vital pieces removed. _Instead of what falls away…_ Laura wasn't the only one with a hole but she had a better chance at healing than Carmilla ever would. Carmilla's wounds would be with her still, 500 years from now, Laura's would heal with the bliss of death. The gift of humans. 

"I think it does," she said.

"Why do you do that?" Carmilla said, turning to her.

Laura pulled back at once, dropping her gaze to the ground and fidgeting with her hands. Carmilla walked over to a tree a few feet away and leaned against it, arms crossed.

Without missing a beat, Danny walked over to fill the space next to Laura and Carmilla turned her attention entirely to the pit. It was her tomb once, and it just might be again. They should have left her down there, far away and all alone. No heartbeats above, no warm bodies to hold, no one to love, at least not up close. She had been ready to die, she'd taken her walk of penance to the pit and knew it was a one way trip.

So why was she still here?

"At least you have a chance to be pensive under the stars for once," said J.P. from behind her. "Miss Belmonde said you favored them."

"What do you want bookworm?" Carmilla said, itching her arm and staring at the crater.

"I think in the interest of us having a shared suffering of existence, considering, it would help to not leave each other alone in the dark," he said.

"Did you swallow a _Chicken Soup for the Vampire's Soul_ before they shoved you in my brother's body?" she said.

"No, but, you and I have more in common than you might think."

"Such as?"

"We both want to be human."

Carmilla's head snapped in his direction and although he flinched with a fraction of fear, the rest of him seemed sure in his deduction, looking at her calmly. He held his hands together in front of him like he did constantly and licked his lips.

"Miss Hollis said you refused to drink the Deep One's blood," he said. "I think that's worth more than perhaps you are willing to credit it."

"And I think you should stop talking before you wake up tomorrow without a tongue."

Instead of glaring and stalking off, he smiled. _What in the hell?_ Of all the minds to shove in Will's body, this one was created the greatest dissonance and looked nothing like Willy boy's old snarl and creeping gaze. He nodded and stepped back, sitting down against his own tree and Carmilla reluctantly mirrored him on the ground.

"On the hazard of losing my tongue," he said. "If I might ask, why didn't you partake in Miss Belmonde's plan?"

"Are you about to go down there and guzzle some fish oil?" she said.

"No, but I know why I won't do it. I'm curious why you won't," he said.

Carmilla rolled her eyes and looked up at the sky. The nearly full moon was bleaching out stars but a few still managed to cut through the haze and meet Carmilla's eyes from billions and billions of miles away and years passed. They few that did get through, that didn't let the moonlight turn them into another silent piece of the night sky, those were her favorite.

"I don't think I'll survive being destroyed and remade a second time," she said.

He nodded and hummed a response, looking at his hands and she could practically see the shifting thoughts in his head, working and ticking like a clock.

"I won't know myself, if I do it," she said.

"Do you know yourself now?"

She looked up and felt her brow furrowing and her mouth opened with so much to say but nothing came out. She closed it again and blinked and before she could have a second try, another body broke their quiet space with a snap of a twig.

"I'm all for bonding but we really need to come up with a plan," Laura said.

"Mattie shows, I'll take care of her, you peanut gallery the whole thing later on your webcam. There's your plan," Carmilla said, standing up and brushing grass from her pants.

"You won't be able to stop her," Laura said, biting her lip.

"Yeah, well, maybe we'll make enough noise to attract those patrols," Carmilla said.

"But—you'll get locked up too."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Carm we don't know what Vordenberg wants, he might kill you."

"Then I'd rather die as me instead of whatever Mattie imagines I'll become."

Even in the dark, Carmilla could see Laura's face paling as she pulled back to look at her. Lots of things might have passed over Laura's face, exasperation, shock, maybe even a hint of despair, and Carmilla cringed at the possibility that it was pity but turned back to stare at the sacred ground guarding the entrance to what might be hell. No Mattie yet.

"You don't mean that," Laura mumbled and Carmilla turned her head slightly.

"I very much intend to still be Carmilla when I go, cupcake—"

"No. You don't want to die. Please tell me you don't want to die."

Carmilla turned around completely. Jeep shuffled back and trotted over to the others with a nod to Carmilla but her eyes were fixed on Laura's. In the moonlight her tears were like silver and dazzled. Oh sometimes it seemed worth the sorrow of watching her in pain just to get a glimpse of how beautiful she was when she cried. And Carmilla should be so lucky if even one tear was meant for her.

_I am afraid._

She couldn't say it. She just looked at the ground and toed a pebble across the grass. A choke from Laura who held in a sob forced her to look back up.

"I don't know what I want," Carmilla said. "Oblivion sounds like a welcome release to feeling my heart break over and over again every day that you look at me like a stranger."

Laura's eyes squeezed shut and released more tears of starlight before she opened them back up and blinked into the sky, biting her lip and trying to breath through her nose.

"I'm not a hero," Carmilla said. "But I would be even less if I did what Mattie wanted."

And for now she would cling to that phantom of a heartbeat, that shadow of a soul that she prayed was in fact hiding somewhere beneath the layers. It had to be there. It had to be real. 

\----

The best-laid plans were always crap, and always ended in crap. And now she's standing at the edge of the crater, staring down at a god who's looking right back at her. They seem to have some kind of understanding now, perhaps she's forgiven Carmilla for the pain she caused her and maybe Carmilla will forgive her for the things she wants to do to all the people she ever loved.

In the end it was always Carmilla and the anglerfish. Their destinies entwined and now they'd go together.

The others were there, hovering behind. They'd talked it out already in the living room of that fucking house. It was some Socratic seminar on the pros and cons of Carmilla striping away any fragment that remained of the human that was.

"This isn't some fairy tale where a kiss is going to wake her back up," Danny said, hands on her hips and strutting about the room in a way that always made Carmilla want to trip her. "We'll be turning her into a weapon we have no off switch for."

"We're not doing this," Laura said for maybe the 30th time that night. "I'm not risking anyone else's life for this."

"There's a very strong possibility the effects will wear off," LaFontaine countered. "Vampires seem to cycle blood through their body on the same basic schedule as us, in a few months it'll be clear of her system."

"Well I'm not sure ancient magic from the dawn of time really cares about blood cell lifecycles," Danny said.

"I think, perhaps, it would be helpful to ask Miss Karnstein what she wants?" J.P. said.

Carmilla had been sitting in the corner, forearms on her knees, head bowed, relishing in the last few minutes she would ever be able to smell the dust in the house and the oak of the furniture. The last time she would get to laugh to herself about a new nickname for Danny, the last time she would ever feel the way the third rung of the back of this chair dug into her back.

She raised her head when the hairs on her neck stood up, signaling every single eye in the room was looking at her.

"I'm the only one that can do it, so…" she said, sitting up.

"But Miss Karnstein is that what you want—"

"You're not my fucking brother or my fucking psychologist so back off," she said, standing up entirely and making a move to walk out of the room.

But she was followed, as she always was. The small and fragile mortal body padded after her and she could hear her heartbeat for days. This would be the last time she got to listen to Laura's heart.

"Carmilla please," she said. Her voice was cracking and Carmilla knew if she turned around there would be tears.

"Laura I'm your best shot at stopping her—"

"You shouldn't have to clean up my messes."

"I think it's what I was made for."

Carmilla turned to give her a sad smile and Laura's face went into her hand as she muffled what might have been half sobs. She wiped her tears away violently and took even breaths.

"I make you cry too much," Carmilla whispered, looking down. "At least let that last thing Carmilla does help make you smile again."

Laura shook her head as her face bunched in an effort to hold back another wave but Carmilla kept her small smile all the same.

"I spent 300 years aimlessly walking the Earth and now I have something I think I'm supposed to do, so let me do it," Carmilla pleaded. "This is the first time in my life I've ever been useful or ever felt like maybe there was a reason for what happened to me in 1698."

Though some silent tears slipped out, Laura stared calmly at Carmilla, reading her, reading through her perhaps, for once not calculating the good and bad or waying percentages of risk. Laura was just looking at her, for all that she was. For the last time.

Carmilla walked back out into the room and nodded to LaFontaine went to collect supplies as Carmilla took a deep breath and pushed her hands into her pockets, hoping no one noticed the shaking.

"You operate under the assumption," J.P. said. "That your mother pulled Mircalla out and shoved Carmilla back in. But Carmilla was there from the beginning, I think. Mircalla, Millarca, Armcilla, they all stepped away. And you remained."

Carmilla didn't say anything, gave him a small nod, and focused on keeping her hands still. She wished she could breath for once just to get the sensation of breathlessness once more or butterflies. One last time, it might actually be nice to feel how deeply she was feeling.

Kissing Laura, who was slumped and defeated on the chaise longue, one last time was out of the question. At least her sobs had stopped.

Perhaps, in the end, what made her Carmilla was desire to be exactly that. She liked being Carmilla. She liked reading books and staring at stars and making sarcastic comments and pretending she was apathetic when really she was petrified. She wanted to be Carmilla and never stop.

Human thoughts, human emotions, human words. She could never have those again but the desire to never stop running towards them was a poison she craved. She would spend forever climbing back towards herself if she got even an extra second with her own soul.

_I am Carmilla. I am exactly who I'm supposed to be._

And no fucking Sumerian god was going to take that away from her. Perhaps it would take her body and her mind and make her a puppet. But it couldn't reach her heart. That was steadfastly guarded by small, warm hands sitting across the room.

And now at the edge of the crater, Laura had run up to her and clung desperately. They, for a moment, forgot the fights and the lost weekend-ing, and the petty games of revenge. They forget they'd ever not been together at all, they'd forgot there was a time when they'd never held each other. 

"They don't get all of me," Carmilla whispered. "I'll come back." 

"I do love you," Laura whispered and Carmilla relished in the weightlessness of her own body one last time. 

"They don't get that either," Carmilla said. 

Carmilla pulled away and forced herself not to do the one thing every movie or book would have told her to do. She did not kiss Laura, she turned and walked. One step, two steps, three steps, and she was on her way. She closed her eyes and let her mind watch Laura as they waltzed, as she was tied to a chair but falling in love, as they lay together under the stars or huddled in the snow, as she held a sword between Laura and her mother. 

_I will be Carmilla when I wake up. I will be Carmilla when I get back._

The person who was about to wear her face would never win. 

_I'll be home soon..._

**Author's Note:**

> Written with the theory that Carmilla is going to be forced into drinking the blood (bts photos and such suggest this). This was partially me talking out my own theory for what's going through Carmilla's head and why she's so adamantly attached to herself while Mattie is not. 
> 
> Song: I Will Return -- Skylar Grey


End file.
